


Talisman

by juniper_and_lamplight



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Character Study, F/F, Families of Choice, First Kiss, First Time, Friendship, Getting Together, Gun Violence (referenced), Injury Recovery, Scars, Self-Acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 08:17:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17804414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniper_and_lamplight/pseuds/juniper_and_lamplight
Summary: Farah has survived grief, kidnapping, magical mind control, and traumatic injury. She’s allowed herself to trust her friends, and vice versa, and together they’re building something that they can be proud of. So why not allow herself this, too? Why not expose the shadowy, long-hidden corners of her heart and trust that Tina will protect them for her?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to solomandr for the amazing art ([check it out on Tumblr](https://solomandr.tumblr.com/post/182845300132/starry-night-a-valentines-dghdabigbang) and leave some love!), to flightinflame for betaing and cheerleading, and to our fearless mod Bees for another delightful Bang.

_“Your badge_ — _it's just a star, just another symbol. Your talisman. It can't stop criminals in their tracks, can it? It has power because you believe it does.” -Practical Magic_

The first one is plastic. A plastic, gold-painted, five-pointed star, embossed with a word she can’t read yet. It’s just one of many cheap trinkets included in the goodie bags at Eddie’s cowboy-themed birthday party, but Farah keeps wearing it long after the other kids have gone home. Even at age five, she feels certain that a _real_ badge is her destiny. 

She tells her dad, and for the first time she can remember, he seems excited to hear her talk.

This is what their family does, he tells her. Even when they have to fight for the right to do so, it’s always been the Black family tradition to protect, to serve, to defend. That’s why he joined the Army, he says, and then the police, and why he works with Mr. Spring now. Farah nods solemnly, and wears the little plastic badge until it falls apart.

As soon as she’s old enough, she begins training: martial arts, orienteering, marksmanship, JROTC. This is what her family does. She’s got to be ready.

* * *

Farah’s smart. People tell her so all the time, more than they tell other kids. (Definitely more than they tell Eddie.) But this thing that lives inside her — _anxiety_ , the school counselor calls it — _isn’t_ smart. Anxiety is too stupid to know the difference between what’s dangerous and what isn’t. It makes her panicky and suspicious, even when there’s no obvious reason to feel that way. So Farah decides to _learn_ , to learn everything she can about how to recognize and respond to real danger. If she can teach herself that, then she can be on guard, ready to resist anxiety’s deceptive patterns and skewed logic. Or at the very least she can learn to reign in the little tells that make her anxiety evident to others, so that her father...so that _no one_ ever has to know. 

* * *

She joins the Army right out of college, just like her dad. She keeps her emotions as regulated as her appearance, never dropping her guard as she methodically collects the qualifications she needs. She makes it all the way to the Army Ranger selection process before she’s eliminated by the psych evaluation. Her disappointment is so bitter that she can barely bring herself to say the words out loud, much less say them to her father.

How did she give herself away? She’d trained _so hard_ , and she _knows_ she can handle herself under pressure. But apparently, the ingrained instincts of anxiety — the outsized fears and the second-guesses — become more visible the more she tries to hide them. She hadn’t fooled anyone except herself. 

She resolves to do better. 

She fails.

By the time her active duty contract ends, she’s been rejected by Naval Intelligence, the FBI, and police academy. Her career aspirations have hit a wall, and now they’re bruised, bleeding, and stumbling around in search of a new direction. She’s not sure what that new direction might be, but her first step is to peel the Army decal from her car’s rear windshield, using her fingernails to scrape off the clinging remnants of the crisp white star on its dark background. She hangs up her uniforms and tucks away all of her badges: marksmanship, pathfinder, jump wings, even the hard-won tab from Ranger school. It’s not like they can help her now. 

Just when it seems like she’ll never find a civilian job, her father’s health forces him into early retirement, and she gets a call from Patrick Spring.

* * *

Many fathers would be proud to have one of their children follow in their footsteps, but not Farah’s. If anything, he seems embarrassed. After all, Chief of Security for the Spring estate pales in comparison to Eddie’s new job at Homeland Security. Farah tries to shake off her father’s shame, and her own. She tells herself that it’s not a favor or a fallback; Patrick really does believe in her. It’s been such a long time since anyone believed in her. 

* * *

She does her best to live up to Patrick’s trust, which means that “protect Lydia Spring” moves to the top of her priority list. Even as a kid, Lydia had looked up to Farah with baffling awe; now, she attaches herself to Farah with the easy affection of a young woman raised in privilege, and the desperation of a child who lost her mother too soon. The more time they spend together, the more Farah begins to understand what other people mean when they talk about sisterly warmth and protectiveness (feelings she’s never experienced in relation to her biological sibling). Lydia confides in Farah about everything that happens to her, including her first heartbreak. Unsure of how to console a weeping teenager, Farah brings her a box of tissues and stutters through some platitudes about how it’ll be okay and she just needs some time. Apparently, this is NOT what Lydia wants to hear.

“How would you know?” she fires back. “You’ve never mentioned a boyfriend.” She pauses, tissue in hand. “Or a girlfriend.”

While Farah appreciates the inclusivity, she doesn’t relish being called out by a teenager for her nonexistent love-life. “Lydia. Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”

Sniffling, Lydia shakes her head.

“Then I want you to believe me when I say that I’ve done enough dating to know that this feeling sucks, but it doesn’t last.”

It’s true...ish. She’s dated occasionally, men and women, mostly because it seemed like the thing to do, and she never lacked for offers. But those relationships had been largely unmemorable. Most people had bailed after they glimpsed the yawning vortex of insecurity beneath her gorgeous, hypercompetent exterior, and while those breakups had stung, she’d never been invested enough to experience what Lydia’s experiencing. She’d always had bigger goals, other places to focus her energy. 

For now, Patrick and Lydia are her focus, and that’s enough. She doesn’t need anything else, and most of the time, she doesn’t _want_ anything else. But sometimes...sometimes, she stares sleeplessly at the ceiling, longing for the smell of another person’s skin, the sound of a reassuring voice, the brush of her nose against the back of someone’s neck. She can only hear the low hum of that longing if she holds still, so she tries to stay busy. She throws herself into keeping her new family safe. Her Army Reserves contract ends, and she lets her curls grow out far beyond regulation length. She acclimatizes, month by month, year by year, to this new life, which is nothing like what she’d planned. 

And then, without warning, the bottom drops out. Despite a lifetime of preparing for the worst, she isn’t ready.

In a single week, her family is shattered, her new friendships are wrenched apart, and instead of becoming an agent of justice, Farah becomes a fugitive from it.

* * *

She doesn’t intend to kiss Todd. It just sort of...happens. They’re talking one night outside a dingy roadside restaurant, and suddenly it’s as if their shared stress combines with the expectant tension between them to somehow _compel_ a mouth-to-mouth collision. It happens, and they go with it. And then just as suddenly, it un-happens. They break apart without speaking, and it’s awkward, but in a matter-of-fact way — like they _had_ to kiss to realize that they didn’t want to. They rest their foreheads together for a moment before Farah stands up and begins walking away from the restaurant and out into the field beyond it, where they’ve concealed their car. Todd follows, and they sit on the hood, staring up at the darkening Nevada sky. 

After awhile, she hears a soft _thunk_. It’s Todd’s hand, lying palm-up on the car hood between them. An invitation. And at first she hesitates; of course she hesitates, because hadn’t they just decided _not_ to do this? But a quick sideways glance reveals that Todd isn’t gazing at her amorously. There’s only concern beneath the exhaustion in his eyes. 

“We’re...we’re gonna be okay, right?”

His voice sounds small in the vast open space, but he doesn’t move his hand. The thought floats up in her mind that maybe now, after the kiss, they can just _do_ this — hold hands for comfort, for solidarity. Their relationship doesn’t _have_ to be romantic, doesn’t _have_ to be anything. It can be however they want it to be. _She_ can be however _she_ wants to be. Patrick is gone, her father’s approval is a speck in the rearview mirror, and Eddie sees her as little more than a security risk. The only people she truly has left are the ones who value her as she is. _Incredible,_ Dirk had called her. _Inspiring, perfect,_ Lydia had said. _But you always try to hide from what a freak you are._

She’s done hiding. 

Her friends are still missing, and her situation is still completely fucked, yet she’s seized by delirious sense of freedom.

“Yeah, Todd. We’re gonna be okay.”

She takes his outstretched hand, and together they look back up at the wide expanse of sky, where countless points of light are just beginning to show.


	2. Chapter 2

_Seriously?_ is all Farah can think the first time she sees her. 

It’s bad enough that they’ve allowed themselves to be arrested and locked up by Montana’s nicest sheriff. But this deputy, with her scraggly dishwater braids and her breakfast pastry and her sorta-sobriety? She’s almost the last straw. How did _she_ become a sheriff’s deputy when Farah couldn’t even get into police academy? 

Still, her total disregard for protocol means that Farah gets to wear an incredible vintage police uniform. So there’s that.

* * *

Workplace-inappropriate weed gummies aside, she’s surprisingly good company. Farah’s reassured to discover that she knows more about police work than Tina does, and it’s refreshing to have someone admire her skills without seeming overawed by them.

Her random moments of perceptiveness, however, take a little getting used to. When she asks why Farah’s sad, it’s so unexpected that Farah’s almost tempted to tell her, to let loose the howling maelstrom of grief-confusion-worry that she keeps so carefully contained. But...no. If she allows even one chink in the armor right now, it might all come crashing down. She keeps her sadness furled tightly, just like she always does, just like her father always did, back when he was alive to do anything at all.

* * *

She’s completely unprepared when Hobbs fishes the badge out of his pocket.

By the time he gets to “I hereby deputize you…” her brain temporarily shorts out. The badge that Hobbs is pinning to her shirt is metal and has six points, but it’s gold-finished, just like the one she’d treasured as a kid. Her eyes well up and her brain reboots just in time for her to ask “Is this real?” And then they’re talking, and her voice is at least an octave higher than usual, and he says “you deserve it” and then OH GOD is she HUGGING Hobbs? Right here in a suspect’s front yard? With extraordinary effort, Farah straightens up, takes a deep breath, and gets her shit together. 

“Thanks, Sherlock,” doesn’t even begin to cover what this means to her, but Deputy Black and Sheriff Hobbs have a suspect to question, so it’ll have to do.

* * *

“We match,” Farah observes as she drops her shirt on the floor next to Tina’s and sees the twin deputy badges glimmering up at her. Tina looks down, squinting in the half-light of the impromptu concert afterparty, and then looks back up at Farah with a delighted grin. Then there there’s a hand on the bare skin of Farah’s stomach, another sliding under the cup of her sensible bra, and her thoughts go all pink and fuzzy again.

That moment is all she can remember the next morning, when the spell has worn off and she’s creeping around the station to retrieve her scattered clothes: warm hands, an open smile, and two stars glittering side-by-side. 

* * *

Shooting her friends and then almost dying should’ve been the worst part, but it’s not.

The worst part, as it turns out, is the recovery. The hospital stay is a fluorescent-lit nightmare, and what little sleep she gets that isn’t interrupted by beeping machines or nurses drawing blood is plagued by a retrospective of all her failures and fears, culminating in the gnawing disbelief that this is even _real_. The doctors tell her that she’ll recover, that they’ll all recover, but Farah can’t accept it. Three people with two gunshot wounds apiece, not to mention the one in Dirk’s leg...no matter how many times Dirk assures her that “ludicrously unlikely” will become her new normal if she sticks with him, Farah can’t believe that they’ll all just...walk away from this. 

The evidence, however, proves that they _can_ walk away from it. Albeit slowly.

She shuffles gingerly down the hall, gripping her IV pole. The door to Hobbs’ room is closed, which means he’s probably asleep. She’ll try him again later, and maybe they can catch a few episodes of the police procedural show they’ve been binging in late-night reruns. (Farah finds the formulaic plots soothing; Hobbs is proud every time he cracks the case before the TV detectives.) 

The door to Tina’s room is open, music from her tinny phone speaker spilling out into the hall. (Tina has a staggering number of playlists, all featuring bands Farah’s never heard of and music genres with names like “grime” and “chillwave.”) Farah enters to find Tina upright in bed, one shoulder of her hospital gown askew as she examines the still-vivid scar from the surgery that repaired the gunshot wound to her shoulder. 

“You got the stitches out,” Farah says by way of greeting.

Tina lights up at the sound of her voice. “Yeah, and about time, they itched like a motherfucker. How’s yours?”

Farah unbuttons the top buttons of her pajama shirt so that she can show Tina the memento of her own shoulder injury. 

Tina whistles, impressed. “Yours looks cooler than mine.” 

Farah _hmmphs_. “You should see the other one. And since your criteria for ‘cool’ includes _Todd_ , I’m not sure I trust your judgment.” Painstakingly, she settles into the armchair by Tina’s bed. 

“Lemme show you a _really_ cool scar.” Tina flips up her blanket and points to a shiny pattern snaking up her bare left calf. “Ten years old, my bike chain busted mid-ride and whapped me right in the leg.” 

“Ouch.” Farah winces in sympathy, then holds up her left hand, displaying a jagged line intersecting the creases of her palm. “But I got that beat. Rough landing during airborne training. I dressed it myself and made it through jump week, but it still left a mark.”

Tina squints at Farah’s palm. “You had to jump out of a plane to become a Power Ranger?”

By now, Farah knows when Tina’s messing with her, but she gives a serious answer anyway. “I jumped out of _five_ planes, actually. But..I never became a Ranger. All that training, and in the end, I just...wasn’t enough.” It’s the first time she’s talked about it since leaving the Army. It’s only a tiny chink in the armor, the briefest glimpse at what lies beneath. But a glimpse is usually all it takes to send people running.

Tina, however, simply waves a hand. “Psssht, if they didn’t take you, then who needs ‘em? I bet none of those dumb Rangers ever stopped an evil wizard from destroying our reality.” Farah feels warmth spreading under her skin, and it’s not just from the fresh dose of painkillers in her IV drip. Tina continues, pointing to the central star tattoo on her brow. “Okay, so I’m sixteen, and Ken Schmidt dares me to jump into the quarry — the old quarry, full of water — well, water and giant rocks — anyway, I jump, I survive, but I hit my head climbing out. It bled like hell, _suuuper_ gross, but then it healed up into this gnarly little star-shaped scar? So I had it tattooed over.” 

Farah _had_ been wondering. “You didn’t get all three at once?”

“Nuh-uh.” 

“When did you get the other two?”

Tina pauses, then points at the topmost star. “Got this one the day after my brother’s funeral.” She points to the other. “And this one the day I left home for good.”

Farah’s head immediately swims with follow-up questions, but she’s unwilling to break the moment. Tina just acknowledged the glimpse that Farah offered by offering a glimpse of her own — and neither of them has run screaming. (Not that they _could_ run, right now.) Farah wants to say something, _anything_ , but she doesn’t know how to translate this feeling into words; and anyway, the painkillers are taking hold now, and she sleeps much better in Tina’s room than in her own.

“Tell me another,” she says.

Tina’s brows draw in, but her response is pure bravado. “You mean another one of my super-badass, scorchingly hot scar adventures?”

Farah snorts. “Yeah, those.”

“Laugh all you want, I’ve got some real panty-incinerating stories over here, you don’t even _know_.”

“I…I know I don’t want to spend another night in this place alone with my thoughts. Do you?” Slowly, Tina shakes her head. “Then...just keep talking, okay?”

Tina swallows, and then tugs on her earlobe. “Queercore show in Helena, 1997. All three earrings got ripped clean outta my ear. I bled on half the people in that mosh pit before I even realized what had happened...”

Farah closes her eyes and listens.

* * *

When she’s finally, _finally_ discharged and allowed to return home, Farah discovers a newfound appreciation for basic mobility, as well as for the improbable second chance she’s been given. She never thought she’d feel this sense of purpose again, but if they can get this detective agency running, they might be able to protect, serve, or defend some people who really need their help. 

And yet she can’t shake the feeling that she found something equally important in that dusty Montana backwater. Something she shouldn’t leave behind.

* * *

The first time they kiss, during Tina’s first visit to the newly opened detective agency, Farah feels a rush of familiarity. At first she thinks it’s a resurfaced memory from the Sound of Nothing afterparty, but that’s not it. Instead, it’s the same dizzying, limitless sensation she’d felt looking up at the Nevada sky, only this time it’s sharper, more concentrated, the points of light behind her eyelids like a private fireworks show, her nerve endings lit up in celebration. Then her brain catches up to the fact that she’s _kissing Tina Tevetino_ , sober and in broad daylight. They could be risking their entire friendship, but there's no time to step back and weigh the choice logically. Cold panic trickles into Farah's lungs, and though she tries not to be too obvious about her deliberately slow breathing, Tina notices. She notices, and slows the kiss, slows her own breathing until it’s in sync with Farah’s. 

Farah has survived grief, kidnapping, magical mind control, and traumatic injury. She’s allowed herself to trust her friends, and vice versa, and together they’re building something that they can be proud of. So why not allow herself this, too? Why not expose the shadowy, long-hidden corners of her heart and trust that Tina will protect them for her? No one else has ever been up for the challenge, but Farah’s seen Tina when the odds are stacked against her. Tina might be ridiculous and impetuous and kind of a mess, but when she really believes in someone, she doesn’t back down. 

As the ice recedes from Farah’s chest, she deepens the tentative kiss, eliciting an approving noise and an enthusiastic nip from Tina. Farah shifts, slotting their thighs together and working her hands into the heavy tangle of Tina’s hair, trying to keep her close and show her all the things she doesn’t know how to say. Through each press of hips and slide of tongues, they’re continuing a conversation already in progress, answering the questions they’ve been not-asking. Sharing a promise to keep talking.

* * *

Lydia decides to remain abroad while she finishes school, but she and Farah have video calls at least once a week. Distance has made Lydia a lot more curious about Farah’s life — or maybe it’s the fact that Farah’s life is a lot more interesting than it used to be. There’s never a shortage of bizarre stories from the detective agency...and there’s Tina. Farah wants nothing more than to tell Lydia that Tina’s her girlfriend now, but every time she tries, her mouth dries up. Todd and Dirk and Hobbs hadn’t needed to be told, not after watching the relationship develop in real time, and it’s not that she’s _afraid_ , per se. It’s just that she has no blueprint for this. Before Tina, she’d never had a relationship worth telling her family about.

In the end, she takes the easy way out and texts Lydia, who responds immediately with “duh,” followed by a string of hearts, party poppers, and rainbows. 

Hours later, when it’s the middle of the night in Lydia’s time zone, Farah gets a follow-up text: “Dad would’ve been happy too.” It’s only after the tears begin sliding down past her smile and into her shirt collar that Farah realizes just how long she’d been holding them back. 

* * *

“This was the bike chain, right?” she asks, lightly stroking Tina’s calf as she tugs it free from Tina’s jeans. 

“Uh huh.” Tina’s voice is dazed, but now that all of their clothes have come off, her eyes and hands are confident and eager. Farah bends to kiss each mole and freckle on her inner thighs, to run her thumbs over each rounded hipbone, to lick the pale pink mark on the curve of her belly.

“And this is the appendectomy?”

“Mmmmmmm.” Tina’s assent turns into a throaty moan as she seizes Farah’s hand and begins sliding her tongue between each of the fingers. It shouldn’t be hot, but it _is_ , and more than just Farah’s hand is wet by the time Tina kisses the crooked line streaking across her palm. “And this was, uhhhh...a trapeze accident?”

Farah laughs, and moves up so she can see Tina’s face. “You’re terrible at this game,” she says, but she drags her damp palm downwards, where Tina pushes up against it, unabashed. 

“Hey, now, I... _ohhh,_ ” Tina pants, “I got the…. _godyesodn’tstop_...got the first two right.”

“Yeah, because you were _there_ when they happened,” Farah responds, her words as teasing as her hand.

“You know, I think this is the...oh, _fuck_ that’s good... first time I’ve gotten naked with someone who shot me?”

Farah positions her own thigh behind her hand, adding pressure to the slow grind and drinking in the sight of Tina with her head thrown back. “Me too.” 

Tina’s short nails drag shivers down Farah’s spine before coming to rest firmly on her ass. “Of all the batshit bananas stuff we’ve done since we met, _this_ ,” she gives a squeeze for emphasis, “is _definitely_ my favorite.” 

Farah lowers her head and breathes another “Me too” against the faint scars on Tina’s earlobe. 

Neither of them is ready to name this bewildering, exhilarating _thing_ that’s been growing between them, but they’re getting closer to it, finding their way through celestial navigation, tracing the constellations of history on their skin and leaving new marks to point the way forward. Farah doesn’t say anything when she kisses the tattoos on Tina’s face — _experience, grief, independence_ — but she doesn’t need to. She kisses both perfect eyebrows before finding Tina’s mouth again, just as Tina’s hand steals between her legs.

There are no lights behind her eyelids when she comes, because she keeps her eyes wide open. She wants to remember this.

* * *

Eventually, Farah has their badges custom-framed in a shadowbox, displayed side-by-side. She knows it’s corny, but she’s past caring about that sort of thing, especially after she shows it to Tina, whose attempt at jokey nonchalance dissolves into a teary laugh that Farah just has to taste.

They hang the shadowbox by the bedroom door in their shared Seattle home, so that they see it every morning and evening. Farah knows better, now, than to believe in badges as prizes to be won or talismans to ward off harm. Still, she likes seeing them there, a daily reminder of what she and Tina went through to make it to this place. The tiny constellation that brought them together, and continues to guide them home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never let it be said that I can’t torture a motif! Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed this even a little, please let me know--all kudos and/or comments will be appreciated and treasured :) Feel free to [find me on Tumblr](https://juniper-and-lamplight.tumblr.com) for further Farina feelings and general DGHDA love.
> 
> Some clarifying points for my fellow pedants:  
> -The epigraph comes from the _Practical Magic_ film, not the book.  
> -In reality, most law enforcement officers don’t get to keep their badges after leaving the force, though some are given a “retired” badge. However, since Hobbs insists on Farah keeping her badge, I feel certain he’d do the same for Tina.  
> -Farah’s initial annoyance about Tina being a deputy is misplaced, because sheriff’s deputies don’t even have to go to police academy. American law enforcement is a nightmare!  
> -Apologies for the Jaws/Chasing Amy reference, but RhondaHurley said it had to be done, and she was right.


End file.
